By MICHAEL ROSENBERG

FREE PRESS SPORTS WRITER

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Former Michigan receiver Toney Clemons told the Free Press on Sunday that he would tell NCAA investigators about excessive practice and workout hours when he played for coach Rich Rodriguez.

“Oh, yeah,” Clemons said. “I’ll always be honest. My mom and my dad raised me to be a stand-up guy. If they call me and I have to tell them my schedule, I’ll tell them what I went through. I will definitely tell the truth.”

Clemons went through two winters of workouts and a full season under Rodriguez before transferring to Colorado this spring. Clemons said his experience under former U-M coach Lloyd Carr and Colorado coach Dan Hawkins was very different than under Rodriguez. He said the implication everybody violated off-season and in-season hour limits, as well as rules governing voluntary activities, was “definitely false.”

“I’ve played for three coaches, I’ve seen three different systems, three different personalities of programs,” said Clemons, from New Kensington, Pa. “Not every coach does that. With Coach Carr coming in as freshmen, we understood the rules early in the summertime. We never had anybody come out and monitor anything that they weren’t allowed to be there for. And compliance at the University of Colorado is real in tune. They make sure that we know the rules.”

Clemons said most players were willing to work beyond the required hours, and that at Colorado “it becomes mandatory through your teammates. It’s not forced upon you by the coaching staff.”

He added: “The difference that came with it, and what really bothered the people, was that if they missed it, the things they had to do for missing it. It became a problem whenever people would miss a workout and had to be punished or reprimanded for missing one.”